Extol thee—could I? Then I will
by jomiddlemarch
Summary: It takes a hour to get back to Four Winds from Gilbert's surgery.


"Anne-girl, thank you," Gilbert said, finding her in the kitchen at the little House of Dreams.

Dinner would be a little late, but she thought he wouldn't mind it—it promised to be delicious even if it did take a little while and he might like to enjoy the fresh air a ramble through the garden would provide or the respite of his armchair in front of the empty hearth. Captain Jim had brought along the fresh scallops when he'd visited and had told such an engrossing yarn of a shipwreck, she'd started preparing their supper later than she'd planned. She couldn't imagine what he meant though, greeting her with a "thank you" but she needed to finish adding a handful for herbs to the sauce she'd labored over, so she only raised an eyebrow and said,

"Whatever for?"

"Everything I suppose—marrying me, making such a fine dinner every day and the best cup of tea I've ever had, only don't tell my mother that. For keeping beach roses in a glass beside our bed and all your toiling in the garden. For being so lovely whether you are scouring a pot or weeding a dahlia bed, with smudges of ink on every finger and the tip of your nose when you are writing. For arguing with me over Professor Guglemann's latest treatise in Physiology," he said, in that considering tone of voice she loved so much.

"What brought all this on, Gil?" She blew the loose strand of red hair off her cheek and he saw it and smiled.

"I don't know what was worse today, my rounds or my surgery. Every one of the Bennetts have catarrh and no one has taught any of them to use a handkerchief properly. I believe Mrs. Lewis started her laundry in the same pot she uses for salt cod stew and cabbage and I nearly ended up with her husband's underthings around my shoulders like Rachel Lynde's favorite lace shawl. I believe Mrs. Drew is having twins and the dear Lord will have to watch over us all when they're born if her older children are anything to go by. Mr. Thornton won't use his cane and thinks he ought to dig a new well though his leg is hardly mended and Mrs. Robinson cannot be convinced lye soap is not a curative for rash. Hardly one house holds a book or a picture or even a collection of seashells. There was neither peace nor the music of a thoughtful conversation. I shouldn't say it, but I could hardly wait to come home to you, my Anne."

"Poor Dr. Blythe! And now you must wait for your supper besides," Anne replied, a little sorry at his difficult day but relieved no one was dying and not-so-secretly pleased he was happy with her and the home she was devoted to making for him.

"Does your sauce take precedence, sweetheart? Only, I can't think of what else I'd like more than to walk with you a while in the twilight and let you tell me about your day until I interrupt you with a kiss," Gilbert said, shrugging his coat onto a chair though she'd railed at him for that as well, a gentle nagging they both enjoyed as the very epitome of marriage.

"I'm afraid it will all spoil if I leave it now but I have a solution I think. There's only a blueberry pie and custard for your dessert and both of those can wait. Might you be persuaded to take that walk after your supper… and perhaps then I may get more than one kiss?"

He smiled at her, such a bright smile in his tired face, and she saw everything else he hadn't said, how well he loved her, admired her, how she was his friend and his wife and his lover, and she blushed a little at the prospect of the kiss he promised and the ones she'd begged, under the Lombardies' approving branches, and she saw he loved even that too.

"Shall I give you a little one now and the rest later?" he asked but did not wait for an answer, brushed his mouth against her cheek, squeezed her waist, and sighed a little sigh she knew best from after midnight.

"Even your apron is spotless," he said in her ear as if the words were another kiss. She thought she'd wait until the walk to tell him all the entertaining imperfections of her day, the lyric she couldn't write, the broken cobble and the equally broken hoe by the back step, the pinafore covered in her first attempt at chokecherry preserves waiting for the laundry.

"If you want your supper and your walk and what will come with it, you'd best go to your study then, and soak up some of the peace you missed in the day," she said and turned back to the sauce simmering, the scallops under their golden crumbs, the bowl of fresh greens, freshly washed. She heard his footsteps in the hall and when they stopped and then only the distant sound of the sea through the open window and the small sizzle of the scallops in their butter. She would give thanks herself for so many things before they slept, after he'd taken an errant poplar leaf from her hair and finished their conversation with the sweet embrace of a grateful husband after she'd whispered that the blueberry pie and custard would make a fine breakfast.


End file.
